How Mentorship Helped a New Grad PT Land a First Contract

Where They Started

Picture a PT who graduates in May with a DPT, $98,000 in loans, and approximately zero idea of what they are doing. They know travel therapy exists — vaguely — because a classmate mentioned it during the final semester. But the whole thing seems chaotic. Dozens of agencies call before boards are even passed. Recruiters text at 9pm. Job boards show numbers that don't seem real.

Plenty of new grads sign with the first agency that offers a contract. The ones who don't tend to be glad of it later.

Finding a Mentor

In this scenario a professor mentions the Travel Therapy Mentorship program in passing. The form goes in expecting a wait of weeks; the match comes back in two days — a PT with six years of travel and 14 contracts behind them.

The first call runs an hour and a half, built around the list of questions a new grad is too embarrassed to ask anyone else — and the ones they don't yet know to ask.

Learning to Read a Pay Package

A mentor walks through the anatomy of a travel therapy pay package in a way no recruiter has. Taxable base wages. Non-taxable housing stipend. Non-taxable meal and incidental stipend. Travel reimbursement. The distinction between a company-provided housing option and a stipend you pocket. Why a recruiter who leads with "all-in weekly pay" is often obscuring the ratio between those components.

They also show how to think about pay accurately — factoring in the tax treatment of stipends (non-taxable, assuming you maintain a qualifying tax home) versus taxable base wages. Two offers with the same gross total are not worth the same once you see how much of each is taxable wage rather than stipend.

Evaluating Agencies

With that guidance, the traveller approaches three agencies with the same set of questions. Two give vague answers. One gives a clear, line-by-line breakdown of how packages are structured, explains the contract rate concept honestly, and says upfront that it is a PT-owned agency whose recruiters have clinical backgrounds.

That agency is ProTherapy Staffing — the same one the mentor had used for four contracts. No push either way; just "ask all three the same questions and see who answers honestly." The answer tends to answer itself.

The Contract

The first contract is a 13-week SNF placement in Georgia. It pays materially more than the staff offer on the table, largely because a big share of the package is non-taxable stipend rather than taxable wage — the pay calculator will show you what that split is worth on any offer in front of you. It is also a setting they had already done fieldwork in, which makes the clinical transition manageable.

A renewal at the same facility follows, then a second contract in Tennessee — six months into travel, ahead of schedule on the loan payoff, and two classmates referred into the mentorship program.